Uniquely, Cage Cricket is the only competitive cricket format designed to be played by individuals, not teams, and requires only six players.

The game is adaptable and designed to be played within existing community facilities such as MUGA’s, basketball courts, youth club and school gym halls.

Cage Cricket has only thirteen rules and takes less than an hour to complete a game.

It is more democratic than the parent game giving participants, regardless of ability, equal time with the bat, ball and in the field and rewards achievement in all three of these core disciplines

This approach ensures that participants are fully engaged throughout the game.

Cage Cricket is simple to organise, fun to play and breaks down the traditional barriers to cricket participation for people of all ages and abilities.

Crucially, all players, whilst fielding in the Red Zone, also act as the umpire. The Red Zone was designed to ensure that a game of Cage Cricket can be run in an ordered and fair manner without the need for an external umpire or referee but has also come to be identified as a vehicle for the learning of important life lessons around themes such as leadership, responsibility and the making of fair and reasonable decisions under pressure.

As a consequence, participation in Cage Cricket has been identified as aiding the development of core life and social skills, as well as cricketing competence, and has been adopted by a diverse range of outreach and development organisations working in the areas of sport, youth, education, health and social inclusion.

‘’During my 20 year career I have specialised in promoting the health and wellbeing of children and young people through specialist support services, community based ventures and large scale public health initiatives. Having been involved and witnessed major initiatives which aim to result in a long term shift in wellbeing and positive health behaviours, particularly for young people who may not have had the best start in life, I firmly believe that Cage Cricket has the potential to be the exemplar of success.

Based on the progress I have seen so far I wholeheartedly believe that Cage Cricket can evolve to be the perfect vehicle to engage particularly vulnerable groups of young people not only to provide access to physical activity, but improvements to mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing for those taking part. I believe that these outcomes could be achieved in a relatively short period of time but yet help young people to adopt healthy lifestyles and positive attitudes for life.’’

Louise Jones, Learning Manager at the Highland Council, Scotland.

“What can I say, apart from meet me in the Cage! Yesterday was a huge success from our point of view, both short term for the young people on the course and long term for our partnership going forward. Within 5 hours we had young people, who had never played cricket before, let alone run the game and make decisions, actually doing all of this and the atmosphere created in both games was one of fun and enjoyment mixed in with passion and competition.

John Jones, London Youth Sport Development Officer

“We’re off to see Cage Cricket. This is what the kids are playing today. We never had it in my day. It’s a very urban game, very simple. It’s an example of modern Britain and what the kids are doing these days.”

Existing cricket programs are conventionally ‘coach-led,’ requiring constant, ongoing funding. What is unique regarding a Cage Cricket program is that a single course is all that is required to create a pool of players/leaders at a venue and leave them with the requisite tools and skills to play and grow the sport.’

Jas Hothi – Sports Development Officer, London Youth.

The thing I love most about Cage Cricket is you learn even if you don’t want to, just by playing. It’s built into the game. In places where there might be resistance to change, Cage Cricket can make a difference.

Chris Lewis, England Test Cricketer, author and ex offender

Key benefits of Cage Cricket Participation are:

Each player is always fully involved in the game throughout play.

The play sequence ensures every player participates in each activity (batting, bowling, fielding and umpiring) in equal measure.

Although played as an individual, the structure of Cage Cricket leads to enhanced teamwork, communication & leadership skills.

Cage Cricket is not time consuming – a full 30 over game is completed within one hour

Each player goes through an energetic, physical work-out whilst playing Cage Cricket

The Red Zone is uniquely designed to ensure that ownership of the game is with the players on the court (No external umpires required).

Cage Cricket, and Red Zone participation in particular, has been recognised as aiding core literacy and numeracy learning for all ages

The playing of Cage Cricket produces positive outcomes regarding the growth of the individual’s personal, social and emotional development.

Legacy benefits:

Provide cost effective cricket opportunities at grass roots level

Continue the evolution of traditional cricket by offering new opportunities for people to play

Providing new and complementary pathways into local clubs and associations

Transform communities through sporting, recreational and social development

Enhance personal self esteem with increased personal life skills

Provide new means of engagement for health and well-being development

Cage Cricket is a sustainable legacy game. Once established it needs no umpires or coaches to attend for Cage Cricket to happen – ownership is with those who play.

Cage Cricket has proven to be a new sport that the pupils of Platanos College Secondary School, especially the girls, have thoroughly enjoyed. The pupils have expressed that they particularly appreciate the fact that they play independently of each other, which eliminates the pressure of being blamed by their peers when mistakes are made. This allows the pupils to participate in a more relaxed and self-focused manner which keeps them more motivated to try their best and develop their cricketing skills. We will soon have enough girls playing regularly to form our first girl’s cricket team.

Cage Cricket has not only improved pupil’s enjoyment and active participation but also pupil’s confidence and leadership skills. Many of the girls, in particular, have become sport leaders and have shared what they have learnt teaching Cage Cricket to the younger members of the school as well as with other primary feeder schools. Cage Cricket allows the PE department to embrace the hidden curriculum which further develops pupil’s life skills such as perseverance, determination, self confidence and leaderships. These key skills cross over into our PSHE Curriculum as we aim to develop pupils independent learning skills, embrace new challenges and use their initiative to apply this knowledge and understanding of a new situation to achieve specific outcomes.

Cage Cricket has been developed and positioned to exploit the potential of technology, new media and social networks that are integral to 21st century culture and sport participation.

All sports are now looking to embed technology into their offering to increase participation, advocacy and engagement. However, as the majority of sports are well established, this must be done retrospectively. Few are in a position to incorporate technology into their sport at the same time as the development of the sport itself. Cage Cricket, as a new sporting variant, presents an opportunity to build technology into the heart of the development to capitalise directly on the participation opportunities that social media and digital platform usage encourage.

Stage one of our digital roll out programme is the Cage Cricket Play App. (This is complete)

Through this ’free to download’ App we have system that will give anyone who has access to a bat, a ball and access to an enclosed space (MUGA’s, sports halls, youth clubs, tennis courts and the like) the tools to play Cage Cricket, record their scores and become part of the Cage Cricket family – available in real time all the time.

Stage two of our digital roll out is to create a ‘bespoke’ Digital Hub to collate, analyse and display the scores and data. (In Development)

This ‘Hub’ will be able to connect scores, stats and player profiles via a real-time database to other players and watchers. It will provide dashboards displaying your Cage Cricket participation history and will engage and recognise the individual, driving sustained participation through the utilisation of Twitter, QR codes, data dashboards, Google maps, league tables, a handicap system (akin to golf or chess), tournaments and on-line challenges and celebration.

The Cage Cricket Play website will be the hub for the Cage Cricket Community, our supporters and sponsors, and will provide a host of interactive opportunities and open up the opportunity to participate in Cage Cricket to all. This hub website will provide the glue that brings the disparate Cage Cricket groups together and help drive participation toward the delivery of a national 21st Century sporting proposition.

“There is still much to learn from the ingenuity of youth-led cultural movements, and their ability to skilfully navigate issues around equality, identity and self-expression.